Josephine Ain — Aspects and Other Poems

11 December 1916, Sherman, Texas – 6 November 2004, West Hollywood, California

Josephine Ain’s poems move by startling connection: water becomes a stubborn dream, a woman becomes an army, Don Quixote carries an island anchored to an antelope, and seven brief landscapes turn plants and animals into figures of attention. She began publishing as Josephine Cohen while still a Los Angeles student, later became a finalist for the Yale Younger Poets prize with the unpublished manuscript Momentary Mountain, and appeared in Poetry Los Angeles I and Coastlines. Her glass-and-steel home with painter Robert Chuey became one of the city’s most remembered poetry salons, a meeting place for writers, artists, spiritual teachers, and early psychedelic experimenters. This edition gathers every complete poem presently located: “Patience,” the five-part “Aspects,” the three poems printed together in Coastlines, “Seven Haiku,” and “When From the Night.” It follows the earliest complete witnesses, preserves lineation and stanza breaks, and records but does not reconstruct the lost Momentary Mountain manuscript or Ain’s unpublished book on LSD.

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Catalogue

California Quarterly, Coastlines, and Poetry Los Angeles

Associations

Alan Watts Circle Architecture Coastlines Homes, Gardens, and Salons Poetry Los Angeles Psychedelic Los Angeles Radio and Pacifica

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Bibliography

Cohen, Josephine. “Patience.” Los Angeles Times, 3 Mar. 1935, p. 10.

———. “Aspects.” Poetry Los Angeles I. Villiers Publications, 1958, pp. 3–6.

———. “You There, Weeping,” “Magdalen,” and “Don Quixote.” Coastlines, vol. 14–15, spring 1960, pp. 64–65.

———. [Untitled Book on LSD]. Unpublished manuscript reportedly completed by 1961; unlocated.

———. “Seven Haiku.” Coastlines, vol. 18, 1962, p. 11.

———. “When From the Night.” Coastlines, vol. 21–22, 1964, p. 14.

———. Poems reported in Choice, The Kernel: A Literary Supplement, Perspective: A Quarterly of Literature, Arts Tower’s Smiling, Epos, Line, MS, and Transition. Titles and dates unverified.

———. “Aspects,” “Don Quixote,” “Magdalen,” “Seven Haiku,” and “You There, Weeping.” Poets of the Non-Existent City: Los Angeles in the McCarthy Era, edited by Estelle Gershgoren Novak. University of New Mexico Press, 2002, pp. 204–12.

Ain, Josephine. Momentary Mountain. Unpublished manuscript submitted to the Yale Series of Younger Poets, 1952. Present location unknown.

Works About the Author

“Poets of the Non-Existent City.” Anthology with a substantial biography, five poem groups, and Cardona-Hine’s memories of the salon.

Cardona-Hine, Alvaro. “Poetry in Los Angeles 1945 to 1975: Part I.” Bach, no. 12, 1978; excerpt reprinted in Novak, Poets of the Non-Existent City, 212.

“Poetry Los Angeles I.” Complete scan containing the five-part “Aspects”.

“Robert Chuey family/estate biography.” Family recollections, education, marriages, art, spirituality, dogs, final years, and death.

Flemming, Jack. “In Hollywood Hills, Big Plans Are in Store for Neutra’s Chuey House.” Los Angeles Times, 9 May 2019.

“Mel Weisburd oral history.” Friend and editor’s discussion of Coastlines, Ain, the salon, women poets, and the LSD milieu.

“Josephine Ain Chuey.” The Artwork of Robert Chuey. Family/estate biography, archived 4 Aug. 2018.

Lavin, Sylvia. “Open the Box: Richard Neutra and the Psychology of the Domestic Environment.” Assemblage, vol. 40, Dec. 1999, pp. 6–25.

Los Angeles Department of City Planning. Chuey Residence, Historic-Cultural Monument Application and Staff Report. 2017–18.

“Notes on Contributors.” Coastlines, vol. 14–15, spring 1960, p. 2.

“Notes on Contributors.” Coastlines, vol. 18, 1962, p. 2.

Novak, Estelle Gershgoren, editor. Poets of the Non-Existent City: Los Angeles in the McCarthy Era. University of New Mexico Press, 2002, pp. 204–12.

“Michigan Quarterly Review retrospective.” Places Ain in the Coastlines group and the postwar Los Angeles poetry scene.

“LA Conservancy: Chuey Residence.” Preservation history and architectural overview.

“Neutra Institute: Robert and Josephine Chuey House.” Project description emphasizing Josephine’s studio and the building’s spatial qualities.

“Los Angeles City Planning: Chuey Residence final report.” The fullest institutional synthesis of Ain’s marriages, salon, poetry, spiritual life, LSD writing, art, and relationship to the house.

Weisburd, Mel. Oral history interview by Leta E. Miller and Denise Von Glahn. UCLA Library Center for Oral History Research, 2010s.

Stefans, Brian. “Los Angeles Poetry from the McCarthy to the Punk Eras.” A History of California Literature, edited by Blake Allmendinger, Cambridge UP, 2015, pp. 260–80.